Vegan products require that no animal products be used in their production, thus eliminating all meat, eggs, and all dairy ingredients such as milk or butter. Vegans eat only plant-based foodstuffs. Vegans avoid all animal products often for ethical reasons concerned with the treatment and killing of animals. However, concerns about food safety, health, nutrition, and climate change also influence the emerging movement toward vegan products in the marketplace.
To date, elimination diet products, such as vegan products, have turned toward soybeans and soy-based substances to provide the ingredients that are necessary to make meat replacement products palatable or to give them a meat-like texture or appearance. However, because of the increasing prevalence of soy ingredients in vegan products, and the rise of genetically modified soybeans in the food supply, many vegans have experienced both negative physical reactions to soy ingredients in the form of allergic reactions or symptoms of soy intolerance, and social and moral antipathies to GMO products per se. The increasingly high demand for soybeans has led to the introduction of GMO soybeans to meet that demand. One report suggests that 90% of U.S. soy production today is of GMO soy.
Demand for vegan meat replacement products that are not made with either GMO ingredients or soy ingredients has not met with satisfactory solutions. This invention sets forth a new vegan meat replacement platform that avoids both soy and GMO ingredients.